Deeana

So yesterday was my mother's funeral. It was a full Roman Catholic mass with a wonderful organist and an outstanding vocalist. My daughter had chosen the songs which include "Amazing Grace" when we first came into the church and "Ave Maria" during the service. The vocalist was really, really impressive. My daughter and my sister's daughter did the readings. The grandsons and older great grandsons were the pall bearers. At one point during the service the priest was swinging the incense holder around in the air in a circle. Then he walked around the entire casket swinging it both over and under the casket. I do not remember this being done at my father's funeral which was also a Roman Catholic funeral. I also do not remember this being done in such an extensive manner at other Roman Catholic funerals I attended in the past. It has been years since I have been to a Roman Catholic service. If anyone knows, do they always do this way now? Today I feel exhausted but at peace with it all.

Maryann, I never really wrote any letters to Jack after he died. Like you, I tried to, but it just wasn't happening, so I let it go. I think what may be very comforting for one person isn't going to necessarily work for another person. So, you just try something and if it helps great, but if not, so be it. And, for what it's worth, I STILL think it's a terrible, unfair thing in life that our wonderful husbands were taken from us and there are still rotten, nasty people who are alive. That's just the way I feel and I don't think that's going to change. I have accepted that this is just the way life is, but that doesn't mean I like it. Take care..................hot in Pennsylvania today. Upper 80's. Deeana

Oh, you are welcome, Cindy. I'm so glad your husband and your daughter are good listeners. My friend with the son who overdosed was long divorced from her son's father and living on her own. Her adult daughter lives in another state and while she was supportive of her mother to a certain extent, I think her mother's ongoing deep grief was upsetting to her. Because she was trying to manage her own grief. You are wise to recognize how anger can pull us down. And the thing is, it is not that your anger is not justified. I guess those of us who were let down at a very bad time in life by those we thought we could count on will at the very least take valuable lessons away from that experience. And it will shape how we act in the future under similar circumstances. I too never realized about the reactions from others being so different until I went through the funeral of my friend's son. Quite frankly, I didn't and still don't get it. I have not experienced the grief of a suicide death. I know from the reading on grief that I did when my husband died that it is considered to be a complicated grief. You mentioned guilt as being a part of it. My friend had a lot of guilt related to her son's overdose death also. Having to do with her feeling that if she had been a better mother her child would not have been using heroin. She had no idea that was the case. They lived in different cities, he was a married adult with a wife and child. She thought he had a drinking problem and he was scheduled to enter a rehab program the next day. Her counselor told her that often times they will see a person who is going to enter rehab have "one last big party". So this was apparently her son's "last party" - and that is what it turned out to be. It is almost nine years for her now. She has finally come to terms with it. I would say it took her 5 or 6 years to finally be at peace. My sister also had a tough recovery. It took her maybe a little less, maybe about 5 years. I am telling you these times because I think if I were in the situation I would want to know how some others did. I know that everybody is different, but still, if I met someone and they said their child had died, I would ask them how long it took them to come to peace about it. Notice I did not say "get over it". That I have learned, you never "get over it", whether it is a beloved child or a beloved spouse. Deeana

Hello Jeffrey, I am so sorry for your loss of your wife. Yes, many of us here know the lonliness you are speaking of. All I can say is that it does eventually stop hurting as much as it is now. Not that I don't still feel it at times, and for me it is going on six years since my husband died. But I can still well remember the raw, raw hurt and emptiness I felt at one month. Hang in there, you have friends here who will support you through this. Oh, and I wanted to tell you that I too had a "shrine" (my daughter's word) to my husband in my livingroom. For about a year. It was pictures and a few items of his and a heart shaped brass container with some of his ashes in it. And I had a candle I would burn in the evenings. One of the things you will learn about your grief is that is indeed YOUR grief. You can share that grief here and there will be plenty of "listening ears". And even though it may be different for everyone, many aspects of it are similar for all of us. I came to this board when my husband died and it really, really helped me to get through it. I am back now because my mother just died. Take care of yourself, Deeana

Thank you all. Tonight was the viewing at the funeral home. I did cry when I went up to the casket to see her for the first time. So now I am feeling more "normal" somehow. She looked nice. The funeral home did a really good job. Some of her neighbors from the old neighborhood came. And then all the rest were relatives, of course. The funeral is tomorrow morning. My sister and her daughter came in last night, so that is a great comfort. One thing I just hated at the funeral home, though. They had her in the very same room and the very same spot as both my father and my husband were in. And my one sister-in-law was in that very spot in that same room two years ago. Her daughter also commented on how tough it was to be standing once again in that same spot. It is much better when the person is 95 though because they led a very long life. And my mother had no long debilitating illness which is also a blessing. Maryann and Kay - So sorry each of you had to go through the far less than ideal childhoods also. And yes, it surely influenced my parenting. I made sure my kids always knew they were loved, loved, loved. Unconditionally. No name calling, no sarcasm, no unnecessary criticism. My daughter married a man who unfortunately had a mean mother. (I know her. Long story, but she is a bit of a nut case.) She said it is difficult sometimes to parent with him because of that. Luckily, my first husband (father of my children) was a good father and didn't have those kind of "issues". Not the greatest husband, but he was a good father to the children. And my second husband was a really good guy who loved my kids and they both respected and were good friends with him. (I was married 25 years to first husband and was with second husband for 17 years, but only married for the last two years.) Ironically, the judge who married my second husband and I and came with his wife to our wedding dinner afterwards came to the funeral home this evening. He is a friend of the family and that was so nice of him to come.

I did not even start to give away any of my husband's clothes until he was already gone six months. I just could not do it. And, to this day, I have one special jacket that he loved (it has his unit insignia from when he was in the USMC)hanging in my hall oloset. I still enjoy seeing it every time I take a coat or a sweater out of that closet! It is a bright red baseball style jacket with a large "USMC Vietnam Vet" insignia emblazoned in gold on the back. I bought it forhim as a gift at one of his reunions that we attended and he just LOVED it.

Are you invited to their family get together? Are you going? If not, is there any way you could get together separately with his mom? My husband's family totally dropped me after his death. Not that we were particularly close. But I had had them for dinners, had gone to their houses for holidays, etc. And I was sensitive to and included their wishes in the funeral plans. I am not saying this is going to happen to you, by the way. But it happens.

Wow, Maryann, you are a really good writer! You express yourself really well. I am so sorry for your loss. And yes, you are a young widow. And it sucks. I wanted to share something with you that helped me. And I think it was right along about where you are now. I don't know why this helped me, but it did. At the local Dollar Store they have these tall, cylindrical glass containers with a candle inside it. For a dollar. Some of them have religious imagery on them, others are plain. Since my husband Jack and I were not religious, I chose a plain one. That evening when I was feeling lonely and vulnerable I sat the candle on my coffee table in front of me and lit it. When it was time to go up to bed, I blew out the candle and said "Night, Jack." And somehow I felt comforted in a small way. I know, too crazy. But somehow that made me feel better. And from then on for about a year, burning the Jack candle become my comforting ritual. That burning flame comforted me in a way I cannot explain. (It was not the same candle the entire time. They burn down. But they're only a dollar and they are not scented.) I still burn a Jack candle on occasions. His birthday. Our anniversary. Christmas. Valentine's Day. It still comforts me. At about 6-8 months out my own dear daughter expressed to me that she was becoming concerned at the amount of grief that I was still displaying at that time. Not totally breaking down in public any more, but quick to have tears in my eyes. I still could not talk about him without tearing up. I explained to her that I was where I thought I should be and that I was visiting an online support group so I was able to monitor my feelings against those of quite a few other widows. That seemed to reassure her. Perhaps it would be helpful for you to come up with some "standard answer" to those who may suggest it is time for you to "move on" or "get over it". Somehow these people, in their misguided wisdom, think they are being helpful. Sometimes it really can get on your nerves. Depending on where I was on a certain day, I vacillated between being understanding of their ignorance, saying nothing snarling at them! It was after the fog started to lift that I went through the anger phase - which in me manifested itself in me becoming short-tempered and easily irritated. Not anger particularly AT anyone. Just angry. At the fates I guess. I mean, Charles Manson is still alive, and my wonderful husband is dead! How can that be? How can that BE? At that point I discussed my grief with my doctor and she suggested I temporarily up the dose of the antidepressant I was already taking. That helped me a bit also. (I had long been diagnosed with clinical depression and was on a maintenance dose of Zoloft for years prior to my husband's death.) I finally got to the point where I would have a day, or maybe at the beginning only a part of a day, where I don't feel so absolutely awful. Eventually I even might have two days in a row like that. Then I would plunge back down into the pits, feeling all sad and hopeless again. I had terrible, terrible problems with insomnia throughout this period. Since I was no longer working, and I could sleep during the day if needed, I made the decision not to take any kind of sleeping pill. (I know that some people need them) Once in a very great while, I would take an antianxiety medication that my doctor prescribed called Ativan. It was a low dose and I took it at bedtime only. That would relax me enough to get to sleep. It surely is a journey we wouldn't wish on our worst enemy, would we? (Not that I even have an enemy, nor do you, I suspect.) Take care and best wishes from.................Pennsylvania! Deeana

Hi Maryann, My condolences to you on the loss of both your mother and your husband. It is good that you and your mom got along better for those final 12 years. So nice to hear of things working out, at least to some extent. Throughout my life I had always maintained hope that somehow my own mother would mellow out and that we could eventually have a decent relationship. And there were even some times when it seemed like it was happening. But somehow, she would always revert to the old ways and say something really mean. It was almost as if she could not help herself. And maybe she too had a poor background for parenting - in the sense that instead of being raised by her mother she was raised by her grandmother. I don't think she was abused or anything like that but she was angry at both of her parents for the rest of her life for abandoning her. (Her parents divorced when she and her sister were very young, back in a time when there were not a lot of divorced. Somehow my mother ended up with the grandmother and her sister ended up with their mother in a city far away. I never, ever was given any real explanation as to how that happened.) Re; the loss of your beloved husband in December. Six months out was probably about when I started to come out of what I now refer to as "the fog". I was just numb for those first six months. I was already 62 and had cut down to working part time, which I continued to do up until the final two months of my husband's 14 month bout with kidney cancer. I had taken a leave of absence and planned to be off for a month after his death. When it came time to make arrangements to go back to work, I just did not have it in me to return to teaching disadvantaged, needy students. I knew what the job entailed and I knew I had depleted my reserves. So I decided to retire and concentrate on family and grandchildren, which has worked out pretty well for me. I have done some reading on the threads that are on the most prominent pages here but don't know anybody's details at all. So if anyone wants to include any of their details, I'd like to listen. Regarding my own situation: At first I was unsure if I should even come back here. (I posted here and got a lot of help at the time of my husband's death almost six years ago.) Because my situation is not the usual grief. It is what I guess is called "complex grief". And I think, especially the poor mother/daughter relationship aspect of it, can make people uncomfortable. But it is a very real situation, believe me. Oh, and I forgot to write to Marty: The book you mentioned, the one written by the two women on their grief, one who was on the verge of divorce when her husband was killed in a car wreck and the other whose husband had been institutionalized for a long term progressive illness - I actually own that book! I had forgotten all about it, so thank you for reminding me of it. I read it - kind of quickly - as part of my "grief reading" 6 years ago. I will get it out and read it once again now. Best to all, Deeana

I spoke at length with my sister today. I've learned that she is having the same experience, feeling very little sadness, great sense of relief. For those who had a wonderful or maybe I should say a normal relationship with their mother, they would likely not have any understanding of feeling this way. When my father died I had terrible grief. We were close, he was my friend and I could always count on him. Although he was in his 80's, his death came unexpectedly from a massive heart attack. So, no good-byes. At six months out, when I started to talk about my dad to my mother I got tears in my eyes. She looked at me and said "You're not still crying about this are you? You really need to get over it." After that my mother proceeded to tell me that my father was "not as great as everybody thought he was". These things were really hurtful to me. And I was the only one she was saying them to - nothing like this to my sister (but my sister did not live in town and only talked to her via telephone maybe every three weeks or so for 10-15 min. conversations) My mom had been saying some strange things even prior to my Dad's death. She had been hospitalized about 4 months prior to his death and one of their CD's had come up for renewal. He had to go to the bank to sign paperwork for it "re-upped". She was not available to sign, so he just signed the paperwork. Well, they issued the new CD in his name only. When my mother got out of the hospital and saw the paperwork, she went ballistic and angrily accused my father of "trying to steal her money". Nothing he or I said could change her mind about this - that he was trying to steal from her. I did not know it at the time, but this may have been the beginnings of the dementia she was later diagnosed with. My mother no longer drove at the time of my father's death. He was her chauffer. Once he was gone, she had to depend on me to take her everywhere. I was still working full time at the time. She had health problems that required medical care. I would take time off work to take her to her appointments. I would ask her to try to make her appointments for in the afternoon so that I could go in and work and then leave in the afternoon. She would not do this, telling me that "you can't tell them when you want an appointment, you have to adjust to their schedule". My daughter helped me out with this and for the first year my sister lived in town. Then my sister moved away and it was all up to my daughter and I. We handled it for another year and then my daughter was pregnant with her first child and not feeling all that well. I contacted the local Agency for the Aging and they told me about a senior transport program called Access. My mother had a conniption when I brought the idea of senior transport up to her. She said it was the family's obligation and that she was not "going on some bus with strangers". (The widowed lady next door to my mother used the service because I had seen the mini-bus in front of her house several times) I told her that it would give her independence to use the service and that things are changing what with a new baby coming, so she has to do this. She was very bitter about this. But she did it. After that I would still take her to doctor's appointments, but felt she could use the Access for grocery shopping. But sometimes I would still take her grocery shopping, to the bank, to the other stores, etc. She was quite demanding, even at times when I would tell her that I could take her here or there but that I had another obligation for later in the day and would need to just take her for her appointment and take her right back home. On the way home she would say "Oh, I just want to stop into the store for a few things" and I would answer "No, mom, I already told you I can't make any stops today" and she would get very huffy and say "Well, I don't think it is beyond you to just stop so I can pick up a few things". I learned to just ignore this and take her straight back home. My mother was also manipulative and told outright lies at times. For one of her doctor's appointments she called and told me "I don't need you to take me. [My daughter] wants to take me." I said okay. That evening I talked to my daughter and she asked me if they were giving me a bad time at work over leaving to take my mother places. I said no, why do you ask. It turned out my mother had called her and asked her to take her to her appointment, telling her that I could not get the time off work. The time came when my mother told my daughter that she had begun receiving "obscene phone calls from a man". She also told this story to me and named the person who she thought was doing this. The person she named was an old neighbor, who as it happened had a noticeable speech impediment of a lisp. When my daughter and I questioned if the caller spoke with a lisp she said he did not. When we said we will call the phone company and report this she absolutely refused. My mother later went on to tell me that "a friend" had called her and told her she should not bother to mourn my father because he was running around on her with other women. But she would not reveal who this "friend" was. She also told me that my father was a drug dealer, selling his pain pills to men in the parking lot of the grocery store. (He would sit out in the car while she grocery shopped. One day she came out and saw a man beside his car. He said it was the son of a man he had worked with. She did not believe him.) Eventually I came to believe that something not right was going on with my mother's thinking. I talked to her doctor about it. He administered a mini-mental test on her. She was outraged that anyone from her family would call her doctor and tell him she is crazy. Her anger over this was out of bounds. She screamed and swore at me and called me names. It was awful. The story just goes on and on and on..... never a close mother/daughter relationship with either daughter to begin with, some sort of an likely an undiagnosed emotional disturbance, anger issues all of her life. I guess I'm feeling a little sad that I don't feel more sad.

Dear Cindy (Matthew's Mom) First, I want to send you my deepest condolences for the loss of your beloved son Matthew. Although we cannot know your pain, perhaps those of us here can somehow help you to bear it. My longest, oldest friend (48 years we just figured out) described the loss of her adult son to an accidental drug overdose as "soul shattering". She said she felt as if her actual soul had been torn apart. My sister lost her adult son to a sudden illness. She used similar words. So, while I have experienced the grief of the loss of my beloved father and my beloved husband, I have seen that the loss of a child - to me at least - seems to have almost a destructive element to it. My friend was badly treated by some members of her family. Several did not even acknowledge the death of her child. Others were seemingly cold and stand-offish at the funeral. We guessed it was somehow related to their disapproval of it being a drug related death. Or something. My sister was given much more support by friends and family than my friend ever was. So perhaps the manner of death and how people can deal with it does have something to do with how they act and react. I don't know. What I do know is that it seems some or a lot of people you considered to be your friends have treated you rather shabbily. I have been through this situation twice in my life. The first time was after my first husband and I were divorced. Bingo. End of many, many so-called "friendships" - or at least I thought they were. The second time was after the death of my second husband six years ago. While we had only been married for two years at the time of his death, we had been a couple for 15 years prior to our marriage. After his unexpected cancer death, his entire family just dropped me totally. And I mean dropped. Totally. Why? I'll never know. I know I loved their brother, cared for their brother, nursed their brother to his death. Now that I am six years out from it, I just look back at it and shake my head. But I was very, very hurt at the time. Hurting from the loss of my husband, hurting at being rebuffed in such a cruel way. So I can say that I relate to that hurt you are having. What I found with both my friend and my sister was that each seemed to appreciate a "listening ear". Times when they just wanted to talk about their son. Cry about their son. Cry about their loss. Most of the time there was very little I could add. Maybe just to say that yes, my nephew was a very special person and that he was loved by every member of the family. Or that my friend's son was a bubbly, sparkly baby and I remembered babysitting him when he was just a little guy. Things like that. Again, my sincere condolences, Deeana

Kay, Thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful response. You have my condolences on the loss of your mother - and your husband if I have read correctly. I am so sorry to read that you had to go through the court proceedings. I was just at the point of having to initiate that when a fall intervened. Oh, I am planning to attend my mother's funeral, no question about that. And it isn't that I didn't shed a few tears. I did. But only a very few. Far, far different feelings than I had at the death of my father or my husband. And the sense of relief is quite strong. My mother had many similar behaviors to what you describe your mother having. She had been a difficult person all of her life and became quite cantankerous as she aged. "You can't tell me what to do" became her mantra, whether it was in regard to needing to wear a decent, flat-soled boot in the winter time snow to, well, whatever. She had always been on the paranoid side in her thinking about others but that grew more pronounced the older she got. We then got into "stories" about how she should not mourn my father because "a friend" had called her on the phone and told her my dad was running around with other women. (He was 85 when he died.) Then came accusations that I was coming into her house when she was out on the Senior Transportation bus. What was I doing? Washing her dishes, straightening up her house and "putting things in her closets"! Eventualy, she ended up falling in her home and that led to her living in a care facility and finally diagnosed. At first, she was placed on medication and actually mellowed out a bit, with much less paranoia and agitation. Then she decided they were trying to poison her and refused to take the meds anymore. So the negative behaviors returned and even worsened at times. My mother's dementia was diagnosed by two different gerontological specialists as Lewy Body Dementia. It is the #2 type of dementia behind Alzheimers. It is related to Parkinson's Disease, in that the "Lewy Bodies" are a type of protein (named after Dr. Lewy) found in the brain of these patients. Depending where they are located in the brain, it becomes Parkinsons of LBD - or both eventually. The progression of this LBD is quite different than from Alzheimers. Becoming "no longer socially appropriate" in the sense of losing their social graces and saying anything to anybody, no matter how embarrassing, is said to be a part of the earlier stages. Later on the paranoia set in big time, along with hallucinations, so she would call the police to report "people wearing hats" in her basement. The local police were quite kind about this, but they really need to do their job and not have many of these calls. In a way, it was kind of a God's blessing that she fell - did not break anything at that time - because that led to hospitalization, can't be released back to home, etc.

Thank you. Marty. I am educating myself. Due to the longstanding problems in the mother/daughter relationship, I may not have much grief left in me, having already grieved the lack of a relationship with my mother so many times over the years. I happened upon some readings about daughters of mothers who are on the Narcissistic Personality Disorder spectrum. There are lots and lots of red flags. All of which would get even more complicated by dementia, of course. I'll keep reading.

She was 95. She developed dementia, got very paranoid and turned on me after I had been her "caregiver" and chauffer for 8 years after my father died. She also said and did some things that were extremely manipulative and caused a breech between me and one of my children. When my father died I was totally grief stricken. Six years ago my beloved husband was diagnosed with advanced cancer and died at home with me as his caregiver. I grieved deeply for him. Today I feel no sadness, no grief. Just relief. I cried a little as I sat at her bedside at the Hospice Center last evening. But not much and not for long. Has anyone else ever experienced this? Deeana